Identification of multiple gephyrin variants in different organs of the adult rat

The neurotransmitter receptor anchoring protein gephyrin is encoded by a hi ghly mosaic gene whose primary transcript is subject to extensive alternati ve splicing. Gephyrin mRNAs are widely expressed in various mammalian tissu es, and gephyrin has been implicated in neuron-specific and general metabol ic functions. Using a novel affinity isolation procedure, we report the ide ntification of different gephyrin variants in various organs of the adult r at. In particular, polypeptides of 52, 56, 60, and 91 kDa were detected in addition to the previously characterized 93-kDa protein. Our results sugges t tissue-specific functional differences between gephyrin variants, (C) 200 1 Academic Press.